Insights and methods from the chemical sciences are directly relevant to global challenges such as climate change, renewable energy generation and storage, water purification, and food production. However, these connections are often opaque to students in general chemistry courses, who may get lost in the weeds of stoichiometry, VSEPR, and gas…

Despite STEM education communities recognizing the importance of integrating computational thinking (CT) into high school curricula, computation still remains a separate area of study in K-12 contexts. In addition, much of the research on CT has focused on creating generally agreed-upon definitions and curricula, but few studies have empirically…

Learning the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons plays a central role in understanding quantum physics. Teaching it requires that the teacher is fluent in using abstract and uncommon terms. We inspect the lexical structures of pre-service teachers' declarative knowledge about the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons in the…

The purpose of this study is to develop a thinking process model that reveals cognitive bias through analyzing students' cognitive biases in processing experimental manuals. Twenty-two college students participated in the study. During the "making electromagnets" experimental activity, we collected students' concurrent verbal protocols,…

The purpose of this study was to determine the state of secondary school students? cognitive structures about argument and related concepts and to reveal the change in their cognitive structures regarding these concepts after the implementation of the argumentation-oriented approach in science lessons. This study was conducted in Grade 6, 7, 8…

Human anatomy is a foundational course in nursing education, however, there is growing concern that students do not retain enough anatomical knowledge to successfully apply it in clinical settings. The aim of this study was to determine retention level of anatomy knowledge among second-year nursing students from their first-year anatomy class, and…

Proteins must interact with a variety of other cellular components to properly perform their functions. We have developed a series of five experiments based on the robust bacterial single-stranded DNA binding protein (SSB) to characterize both known and unknown protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions. Students work in groups to generate and…

Students often use incoherent strategies in their problem solving involving force and motion, as revealed, e.g. when they are asked to draw force diagrams for amusement rides involving circular motion, whether in horizontal or vertical planes. Depending on the questions asked, assignments involving circular motion can reveal different types of…

Pole vaulting, the aim of which is to jump over a crossbar with the help of a long flexible pole, is considered to be one of the most complicated and technically demanding motions in track and field athletics. Pole vault performance is basically influenced by the energy exchange between the vaulter and pole. It depends on the sprinting, jumping…

For many years, Atwood's machine has been used to demonstrate, illustrate, or verify Newton's laws in introductory physics courses. It consists of two objects of different mass that are fastened to the ends of a string that hangs over a pulley. In an idealized situation, one assumes that pulley friction, the string's mass, and changes in the…

This paper determined the relative effect of animated and non-animated powerpoint (PPT) presentations on students' achievement in physics. A non-equivalent group quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study, using a sample of 88 senior secondary two students drawn from secondary schools in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu…

In general, cooperative learning refers to the use of small groups of students to encourage them to work together and help each other to learn, accomplish learning goals, and increase their learning potential. This study attempts to explore the effectiveness of cooperative learning at secondary level classroom learning and students' achievement in…

Teachers are confronted with many challenges in the science classroom. One of these challenges is finding a reliable learning approach to improve students' performance. This study used peer learning approach of teaching to help students learn and understand concepts in a photosynthesis class. The participants of the study were 40 science students…

Mathematics courses should prepare students to use mathematics in a range of contexts, including science. However, students often struggle in applying mathematics in physics courses, even when they understand the mathematical content (Rebello et al., 2007). Often the root of this struggle is attributed to the "student" or the…

Increasing student success and retention rates are top goals for many higher education institutions. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a widely used academic support program designed to increase students' academic performance and provide students the learning skills they need to persist to graduation. Unfortunately, a lack of time, personnel, and…